Conway Suggests Trump to Use Exec Privilege to Block Comey Testimony Next Week

June 3rd, 2017

Awake Goy

Conway Suggests Trump to Use Exec Privilege to Block Comey Testimony Next Week

Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Host of Hardline Radio Show

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to Donald Trump, told the press this week that her boss is considering whether or not to use his powers as president to block former FBI director James Comey from testifying before Congress next week.

Comey is scheduled to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8th. He is expected to answer questions on possible coordination between Trump and Russia during our last election, and reports concerning allegations that Trump tried to interfere in the FBI’s investigation into a former cabinet member.

Speaking to ABC News , Conway warned that Trump would be “watching with the rest of the world when Director Comey testifies.”

When asked if Trump would exert executive privilege in order to prevent Comey from speaking to Congress, Conway replied: “The president will make that decision.”

It is within Trump’s right to invoke the executive privilege doctrine which is a way for any US president “and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government to access information and personnel relating to the executive branch.”

This is not a constitutional mandate, but rather a Nixonian rule brought by the US Supreme Court which decided that executive privilege is “an element of the separation of powers doctrine and derived from the supremacy of executive branch in its own area of Constitutional activity.”

Continuing to clarify Trump’s possible use of executive privilege, Conway said: “When Director Comey goes to testify, I think that will be a very clarifying moment. I would, again, repeat that his most recent sworn testimony had to be corrected almost immediately. But it’s more important to have somebody testify under oath, frankly, than to have his friends and his former colleagues out there speaking to the media, not under oath.”

If Trump were to exert his presidential prerogative, it might have something to do with the new infamous Comey memos.

As was reported, in one memo is the allegation that Trump tried to persuade Comey to “let go” of his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The White House response to the news was to assert that Trump “has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

However, it was reported that those memos were circulated between “a very small circle of people at the FBI and Justice Department” and those who have seen the memos describe the ones reported on as “highly detailed.”

It is also a consensus among those who have seen the memos that Trump’s remark about Flynn to Comey was “an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret — even from the FBI agents working on the Russia investigation — so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.”

In the past, Trump has tried to interfere in Comey’s testimony to Congress using Twitter. Just last month, and after Trump fired Comey, he took to social media to issue a veiled threat to the former FBI director.

James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

In response, Congressmen Elijah Cummings and John Conyers wrote a letter to White House Counsel Don McGahn, asking for any and all copies of recordings between Comey and Trump.

The letter reads in part: “It is a crime to intimidate or threaten any potential witness with the intent to influence, delay, or prevent their official testimony. The President’s actions this morning — as well as his admission yesterday on national television that he fired Director Comey because he was investigating Trump campaign officials and their connections to the Russian government — raise the specter of possible intimidation and obstruction of justice. The President’s actions also risk undermining the ongoing criminal and counter-intelligence investigations and the independence of federal law enforcement agencies.”